Friday, October 8, 2010

Gun City in Nashville

A federal judge has ruled against Nashville's Gun City USA, paving the way for federal firearms regulators to possibly yank its sales license.

The key words in this story are "paving the way" and "possibly yank." That's after YEARS of trying on the part of the ATF. The gun laws are so disgracefully bent in favor of the gun shops and gun owners that this place has remained open and has done business as usual despite violations going back to 1999.

Naturally the pro-gun voices are claiming it's about "minutiae" and "flaws and inconsistencies."

The ATF said the store failed to document the sales of more than 1,000 guns and a handful of background checks and instances of multiple firearms sales, and did not complete other required paperwork. ATF agents helped set up a spreadsheet to track sales but said the store did not follow through.

Here's my idea. Anyone who calls 1,000 missing records of gun sales minutiae is wrong. That's something serious. A situation like that makes one wonder why. Why would so many important documents be missing?

Here's my solution. Close that place down immediately. Sell the inventory to a legitimate gun shop and give the proceeds to the ATF for the years of work they've put in on this case.

The nonchalance with which these "paperwork" crimes are viewed needs to change. One single instance of a missing sales record should be treated very seriously, on the same par with selling a gun out the back door to a convicted felon.

It's called gun running and it is at the level of acts such as drug dealing, child pornography, human trafficking, and prostitution.

Is it gun running? There seems to be no proof of that. It could be gun running, or it could be a clerical error. I think it's time for the ATF to do a proper investigation. Or perhaps call the FBI so that they can see how it is done.

Actually, most of humanity could care less about paperwork. No way you three are going to convince anyone but yourselves that failing to fill out government paperwork is as repugnant as rape or murder.

And while your paperwork violations may be against the law, you are also not going to convince anyone that it is "immoral" especially when it wasn't even considered illegal, let alone immoral, until after most people living today were even born.

No one believes they are going to hell because they put a "Y" in a square box rather than writing out "Yes".